NEW YORK—Nearly 100 people attended a Jan. 10 meeting here at the union headquarters of 1199SEIU to demand freedom for Oscar López Rivera and celebrate the upcoming publication in English of López’s book Between Resistance and Torture. The Puerto Rican independence fighter, who recently turned 70, has been imprisoned in the U.S. for more than 31 years, 12 of them in solitary confinement. The parole board last year turned down his request for release.

Prior to his arrest in 1981 and subsequent conviction on charges of “seditious conspiracy,” López was well known in the Puerto Rican community in Chicago. He helped organize the Committee to Free the Five Puerto Rican Nationalists, who had been jailed in 1954 for carrying out an armed pro-independence demonstration in the U.S. Congress, and was active in other social struggles.

Maria Kercado, vice president of 1199SEIU, chaired the meeting. José López Rivera (inset, standing), executive director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago and Oscar’s brother, was the featured speaker.

José López visited Cuba for the first time last November and said he was struck by the strong support there for the Puerto Rican independence struggle and fight to free Puerto Rican political prisoners.

“I would be remiss if I did not also call tonight for freedom for the Cuban Five,” he said to loud applause, referring to the five Cuban revolutionaries imprisoned in the United States since 1998. (See box on this page below.)

—SETH GALINSKY